Monthly Archives: July 2020

Stephen Tataw: Indomitable Lion’s Italia 90 World Cup captain dies

31, July 2020

Stephen Tataw: Indomitable Lion’s Italia 90 World Cup captain dies 0

Former Cameroon captain Stephen Tataw has died at the age of 57.

He was most famous for leading the Indomitable Lions to the quarter-finals of the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

That run included wins over Argentina, Romania and Colombia, as Cameroon became the first African side to reach the last eight.

Four years later in the United States it was not such a fairytale as they were knocked out in the first round, including a 6-1 thrashing by Russia.

Tataw’s club career saw him play for Cameroonian sides Tonnerre Yaounde and Olympic Mvolye.

He ended his playing time in Japan with Tosu Futures.

A cause of death has not yet been made public.

Source: BBC

Ambazonia Defense Secretary: Getting to Buea and establishing security only possible through unity

31, July 2020

Ambazonia Defense Secretary: Getting to Buea and establishing security only possible through unity 0

Southern Cameroons Secretary for Defense says getting to Buea and successfully establishing security in every Ambazonia county will only be possible through unity among all restoration groups and front line leaders.

The Defense Secretary names (withheld) spoke to our correspondent in Boston, USA on the effects of COVID-19 on the resistance and pointed out that Buea is only possible within the framework of unity, complete and total cooperation both in the diaspora and in Ground Zero.

The Southern Cameroons Defense Secretary also congratulated all Ambazonia Restoration Forces for holding strong to the goals of the resistance and quest for the independence of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

The Defense Secretary’s remarks concerning the importance of unity in the Southern Cameroons battle for independence came amid ongoing anti revolution statements from the former Secretary of Communication Chris Anu and his acolyte Boh Herbert.

Southern Cameroons has weathered almost four years of French Cameroun military aggression and genocidal campaign that have turned the hugely rich and peaceful territory into a lucrative market for French Cameroun criminals currently involved in kidnappings.

The Defense Secretary hoped that respective efforts by the jailed leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and Vice President Dabney Yerima will contribute to bringing about unity and cooperation.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Global coronavirus cases top 16.7 million, over 660K dead

31, July 2020

Global coronavirus cases top 16.7 million, over 660K dead 0

The new coronavirus has so far infected more than 16.7 million people around the globe and claimed the lives of 660,593 people, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

According to the university, 16,747,268 people have been confirmed infected and 660,593 have died around the world.

The following are the latest updates of the coronavirus pandemic as provided by Reuters:

Russian institute launches human trial of Russia’s second COVID-19 vaccine

A Russian state virology institute has started human trials of the country’s second potential COVID-19 vaccine, injecting the first of five volunteers with a dose on July 27, the RIA news agency reported on Tuesday.

The individual was feeling fine, the agency reported.

The next volunteer in the trial by the Vector virology institute in Siberia would receive an injection on July 30, RIA cited consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor as saying.

The trial is then expected to scale up to 100 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 60, the clinical trial’s register shows. Vector is working on six different potential COVID-19 vaccines, World Health Organization (WHO) records show.

Yawalapiti chief Aritana, suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), is supported by a doctor in front of the Sao Francisco de Assis Hospital after being transferred from Canarana to Goiania, in Brazil, on July 22, 2020. (Photo by Reuters)

More than 100 possible vaccines are being developed around the world to try to stop the coronavirus pandemic. At least four are in final Phase III human trials, according to WHO data — including three developed in China and another in Britain.

Brazil registers 40,816 cases, 921 deaths

Brazil recorded 40,816 additional confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, as well as 921 deaths from the disease, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

Brazil has registered nearly 2.5 million cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 88,539, according to ministry data.

French Health Minister: We want to avoid another coronavirus lockdown

French Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Wednesday the battle against the COVID-19 virus would be long and urged people to comply with social distancing rules as authorities wanted to avoid another national lockdown.

“We are not facing a second wave, the epidemic is continuing… Some people do not respect the rules. We must not let down our guard,” Veran told LCI television.

“We do not want to resort to another lockdown, we are examining the situation on a case-by-case basis. The war is not over… People must understand that we are going to live with this virus for a fairly long time,” he added.

A customer pushes a shopping trolley past a Carrefour hypermaket in a shopping center in Charenton-le-Pont near Paris, in France, April 29, 2020. (Photo by Reuters)

Italian PM Conte wins backing to extend COVID-19 emergency period

Italy’s upper house of parliament approved on Tuesday a request by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to extend until Oct. 15 a state of emergency, expanding his government’s powers as it tackles the coronavirus health crisis.

Opposition parties had objected, accusing Conte of trying to keep too much power in his own hands despite a dramatic fall in the rate of contagion.

Conte announced a six-month state of emergency on Jan. 31, when the first two cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Rome.

Italy has been one of the worst-affected countries in Europe, registering more than 35,000 deaths from around 246,500 cases.

However, new infections have fallen sharply over the past three months and Conte’s critics said he needed to involve parliament in key decisions.

Portugal’s popular Madeira makes masks compulsory in public

Wearing masks in public will be compulsory at all times on the popular Portuguese island of Madeira from Aug. 1, the local government announced on Tuesday, making it the first region in the country to adopt such a measure against COVID-19.

Madeira has reported 105 infections, with no new cases since Saturday.

The use of masks in closed spaces and public transport is already compulsory in Madeira but now those on the streets must wear masks too.

Portugal, which as a whole has reported 50,410 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,722 deaths, was initially hailed as a success story in its fight against the outbreak.

But a wave of outbreaks on the outskirts of Lisbon over the past two months forced the government to bring back some measures across affected areas. The government is expected to ease some of those measures on Wednesday.

Belgians adapt to compulsory face masks along North Sea coast

Local authorities in northern Belgium have decided to make masks mandatory outdoors at all times from July 25.

“It’s not very pleasant after all,” said Belgian tourist Nancy van Impe in the port city of Ostend. “We were just cycling without a face mask and then we thought: Oh, do we have to put it on when we cycle?”

Tourists wearing protective face masks are seen in Ostend, Belgium, on July 28, 2020. (Photo by Reuters)

Belgium was hit hard in Europe’s initial coronavirus wave, still holding the record for the most deaths per capita from COVID-19 in the world apart from the tiny northern Italian city state of San Marino. It has since largely curbed transmission through a lockdown that has slowly been lifted in recent months.

But a surge of infections in the past three weeks has raised concern of a second wave. Some tourists said they accepted that drastic measures needed to be taken.

Romania set to make protective masks mandatory outdoors

Romania’s government plans to introduce new measures to help contain a spike in coronavirus cases, including shortening working hours for outdoor pubs and restaurants and making the wearing of protective masks outside mandatory, officials said.

The number of coronavirus infections in Romania has exceeded 1,000 new cases each day for the last week, lifting confirmed cases to 47,053 since the pandemic reached the country in late February. Some 2,239 people have died.

Malta says 65 rescued migrants test positive for COVID-19

Sixty-five migrants who were in a group of 94 people rescued at sea and taken to Malta on Monday have tested positive for COVID-19, Malta’s health ministry said on Tuesday.

It was the single largest cluster of positive cases detected on the Mediterranean island since the first case came to light there on March 7.

The health ministry said 85 of the migrants had been tested so far, with nine awaiting an examination.

It gave no further information about their condition. The nationalities of those infected were not given, but their dinghy was believed to have set sail from Libya.

US Forces in Japan to announce coronavirus case numbers to reassure public

US Forces stationed in Japan will begin announcing coronavirus cases and provide lists of infections at bases in a move aimed at reassuring the Japanese amid growing concern over outbreaks among military personnel, US Forces Japan announced in a press release.

North Korea calls on foreigners to abide by coronavirus restrictions

Following the announcement that North Korea is investigating its first possible coronavirus case, authorities reminded foreigners living in Pyongyang to abide by anti-coronavirus measures, the Russian embassy there said on Wednesday.

North Korea’s foreign ministry circulated a notice on Tuesday telling foreigners not to leave the city, hold large meetings, and to wear masks, among other rules, the embassy said in a post on its Facebook page.

North Korea declared a state of emergency and introduced tougher curbs against the coronavirus, state media reported, after it locked down the town of Kaesong, on the border with the South, to tackle what could be its first publicly confirmed infection.

Hong Kong warns city on verge of large coronavirus outbreak

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has warned the city is on the brink of a large-scale outbreak of the coronavirus and urged people to stay indoors as much as possible as strict new measures to curb the disease’s spread take effect on Wednesday.

The new regulations ban gatherings of more than two people, close dining in restaurants and make the wearing of face masks mandatory in public places, including outdoors. These are the toughest measures introduced in the city since the outbreak.

On Tuesday, Hong Kong reported 106 new coronavirus cases, including 98 that were locally transmitted. Since late January, more than 2,880 people have been infected in the former British colony, 23 of whom have died.

Vietnam says every city, province now at risk of virus infection

Vietnam, virus-free for months, was bracing for another wave of COVID-19 infections on Wednesday after state media reported new cases in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the Central Highlands linked to a recent outbreak in the central city of Danang.

The government on Tuesday suspended all flights to and from Danang for 15 days. At least 30 cases of the novel coronavirus have been detected in or around the city.

Thanks to a centralized quarantine program and an aggressive contact-tracing system, Vietnam had managed to keep its coronavirus tally to just 446 cases, despite sharing a border with China.

With over 95 million people, Vietnam is the most populous country in the world to have recorded no deaths from the virus, and until now no locally transmitted infections had been reported for months.

Australian police officers patrol a walking track as Melbourne remains in lockdown, in Melbourne, Australia, on July 26, 2020. (Photo by Reuters)

Emergency teams battle Australia’s worst outbreak in aged care homes

Australia has sent defense and emergency medical teams, usually deployed to disaster zones, to aged care homes in the city of Melbourne to help contain the country’s worst outbreak of the coronavirus.

Another hotspot, in inner-city Sydney, forced a senior adviser to Prime Minister Scott Morrison into self-isolation, but the prime minister has been cleared to continue working.

Australia has reported far fewer coronavirus cases than many other countries, with nearly 15,600 confirmed infections and 176 deaths as of Wednesday.

Kazakhstan extends coronavirus lockdown until mid-August

Kazakhstan has extended its lockdown over the novel coronavirus for two more weeks until mid-August and the restrictions will then be eased gradually, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Wednesday.

(Source: Reuters)

US: Obama slams an absent Trump in eulogy for civil rights icon John Lewis

31, July 2020

US: Obama slams an absent Trump in eulogy for civil rights icon John Lewis 0

In a fiery eulogy for longtime U.S. Representative John Lewis on Thursday, former President Barack Obama took a series of thinly veiled shots at the actions of his successor that he said tore at the legacy of the Black civil rights icon being laid to rest.

The funeral for Lewis, who played an instrumental role in passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, came on the same day Republican President Donald Trump suggested the Nov. 3 election could be delayed. Trump has also waged a war against mail-in ballots, a tactic critics say is aimed at suppressing votes.

“We no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar in order to cast a ballot,” Obama said in the eulogy, referring to one way Black people were once disqualified at the ballot box.

“But even as we sit here, there are those in power doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities with restrictive ID laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision.”

Obama also referred to reported moves to undermine “the postal service in the run-up to an election that could be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don’t get sick.”

Obama, joined at the funeral by two fellow former presidents, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, spoke of Lewis’s rise from humble beginnings on a Troy, Alabama, farm to become a leader of the 1960s struggle for equal rights for Black Americans. Ultimately, the man known as the “conscience of Congress” never gave up his drive to make “good trouble” in the cause of justice, Obama said.

Obama and others spoke or sang in front of his casket draped in the American flag at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. King, who was assassinated in 1968, had been a mentor to Lewis.

Lewis, who was first elected in 1986 to represent Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives, died on July 17 at age 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. His death came at a time of reckoning across the United States over racial injustice ignited by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

Obama – a Democrat who was the nation’s first black president and who awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 – argued that the man whose sharecropping parents “picked someone else’s cotton” now should be counted among the Founding Fathers.

“America was built by John Lewis. He as much as anyone in our history brought our country closer to its highest ideals,” the Democratic former president said.

In his speech, Bush remembered joining Lewis in Selma, Alabama, for the 50th anniversary of the watershed 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. “The story that began in Troy isn’t ending here today, nor is the work.”

The funeral capped a week of memorial services.

Lewis’s coffin was escorted across the bridge on Sunday, decades after his beating there drew a national spotlight to the struggle for racial equality, including suppression of the Black vote in the South. And on Monday his casket was taken to the U.S. Capitol in Washington where it lay in state through Tuesday.

Eric Terrell, 65, of Atlanta, sat outside the church in his wheelchair, in the heat and thick air of an Atlanta summer morning, waiting to get a glimpse of former Presidents Clinton and Bush, but especially Obama. He was camped out before 6:30 a.m. so he could bow his head as Lewis’s funeral procession rolled by.

And he held his homemade sign until his arms got tired. It read, “Get your ass out and vote.”

“He put his life on the line in Selma so we could vote,” said Terrell, who is Black. “So we better do it,” he said before joining the throng of onlookers outside the church watching the services on a Jumbotron.

In an essay written shortly before his death and published in the New York Times on Thursday, Lewis called on the younger generation to get into “good trouble,” using perhaps his most famous utterance about the importance of challenging inequality.

“In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way,” he wrote, before invoking a famous line from King: “Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.”

(AFP)

French Cameroun armed militia and military presence root cause of insecurity in Southern Cameroons

30, July 2020

French Cameroun armed militia and military presence root cause of insecurity in Southern Cameroons 0

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima says the presence of armed militia groups sponsored by the Biya French Cameroun regime and the invading French Cameroun government military is the cause of insecurity in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Comrade Yerima told members of the Southern Cameroons war cabinet that he has written to the UN Secretary General underlining the need for an independent fact finding mission to Southern Cameroons. The Vice President informed the cabinet of the trial of 7 Southern Cameroons health workers in Mamfe and called for unity among Southern Cameroons groups and leaders.  

“The people of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia consider the presence of armed militias groups backed by the Cameroon government army and its elites force, the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) the cause for insecurity, crimes and destruction in their homeland” Yerima said late on Wednesday.

“To defeat the enemy and get to Buea, the focus of every Southern Cameroonian lie in unity; the kind of unity that creates a single force in the face of a genocidal campaign and destruction currently going on in our homeland” the Vice President added.

Dabney Yerima said the treatment of the Ambazonian people by French Cameroun leaders, the destruction of Southern Cameroonian towns and villages, the stupidity of those Southern Cameroonians serving the French Cameroun regime and the actions of some Ambazonian so-called front line leaders is slowly but surely erecting a stonewall on the path to freedom and independence

By Rita Akana and Asu Vera Eyere

US to withdraw 11,900 troops from Germany, about half to be redeployed in Europe

30, July 2020

US to withdraw 11,900 troops from Germany, about half to be redeployed in Europe 0

The US military said on Wednesday it would move its headquarters out of Stuttgart, Germany to Belgium, as it outlined broader plans to shift around 12,000 US troops out of Germany on orders from President Donald Trump.

Trump announced plans last month to cut the number of US troops in Germany to 25,000, faulting the close US ally for failing to meet NATO’s defence spending target and accusing it of taking advantage of America on trade.

Of the 34,500 US military personnel in Germany, some 6,400 will be sent home while nearly 5,600 others will be moved to other NATO countries, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper announced Wednesday.

A key aim of the rotation is to reinforce NATO’s southeastern flank near the Black Sea, Esper said.

Some could also go to Poland and the Baltic states if Warsaw follows through on an agreement already sketched out by the two sides, Esper said.

US officials said some of the moves will begin in months and would likely send air and ground forces to countries that already have an American troop presence.

Shift to Poland

The announcement is closely tied to the plan to increase the US troop presence in Poland, a shift long-desired by Warsaw and Polish President Andrzej Duda.

The moves are expected to cost “billions” of dollars, according to US officials, and require construction at bases in the US to accommodate the additional forces. The officials said that in the future other troops would rotate in and out of Europe.

Members of Trump’s own political party have criticised the troop move as a gift to Russia and a threat to US national security. Twenty-two Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee fired back with a letter to Trump saying a reduced US commitment to Europe’s defence would encourage Russian aggression and opportunism.

It’s also unclear if the plan would survive if Trump is not re-elected in November.

A message to Russia

Germany is a hub for US operations in the Middle East and Africa. The decision to keep nearly half the forces in Europe is a clear move by the Pentagon to assuage allies by avoiding the complete withdrawal of 10,000 troops out of the region. And by spreading forces into the East, it sends a message to Russia that the US is not reducing its commitment to the region and remains ready to protect Eastern Europe from any Moscow aggression.

Shifting forces out of Germany had long been rumoured and is in line with Pentagon efforts to put more troops in the Indo-Pacific. But Trump’s comments indicated the move was tied more directly to his anger over Germany’s failure to meet NATO defence spending goals.

Trump has branded Germany “delinquent” for failing to meet a NATO goal set in 2014 for members to halt budget cuts and move toward spending at least two percent of gross national product on defence by 2024. And he asserted that the Germans had long shortchanged the United States on trade and defence, declaring that “until they pay” more for their own defence, he will reduce US troops.

At a White House event last month with Duda, Trump said that some of the troops from Germany would go to Poland and some would go to “other places”.

Under an agreement announced last year, the US already said it was sending about 1,000 more troops to Poland, and progress is being made, officials said, to lay the groundwork for those moves. Based on that agreement, the US will add a division headquarters, a combat training centre, an unmanned aircraft squadron and structure to support an Army brigade that could rotate in and out of the country.

Overall, the US has about 47,000 troops and civilian personnel in Germany, spread out across a number of bases, headquarters and smaller installations. Most of the 35,000 on active duty are in a handful of larger Army and Air Force bases including Ramstein Air Base, a hub in the region. There also are 2,600 National Guard and Reserve forces in Germany, and almost 12,000 civilians working for the services or the Defense Department.

Several NATO defence ministers had expressed concern about the decision to pull thousands of troops out of Germany, particularly since Trump has talked repeatedly about bringing troops home and getting the US out of “endless wars”.

(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and REUTERS)

Biya regime says anti-corruption drive receiving positive results

30, July 2020

Biya regime says anti-corruption drive receiving positive results 0

Cameroon’s Special Criminal Court said in a report Tuesday it has recovered 9 billion CFA francs (about 14.86 millions U.S. dollars) in eight years following concerted efforts to fight the corruption.

The report, made public to the media in the capital Yaounde by officials of the court, said the money was recovered between 2012 and July 2020 through investigations and operations carried out by the court.

The report said, the court has rendered 216 judgements since its inception, indicating how serious it was and prompting many Cameroonians to practise good governance principles and ultimately reducing corruption tendencies.

Public property which belongs to the nation must be protected for the interest of all, the report stated.

The Special Criminal Court was created to judge corruption cases in 2011 but it only went operational in 2012. It has since judged bribery and corruption cases of top government and military officials.

Depicting the Special Criminal Court established to prosecute alleged corrupt government officials and the several Alibabas responsible for pilfering from the public treasury as the President’s court is no misnomer.  Cameroon Concord News Group calls it President Biya’s court because it is one instrument of power through which the President is reining in on perceived opponents from within his CPDM power conduit.

An attribute of a genuine court is the fairness of the trial proceedings in cases which are brought before the court for trial. It is not the number of convictions entered against accused.  A court is legitimate and recognized as such because of its exercise of judicial, executive, legislative and administrative independence.  A court that is independent must be accessible to all citizens after all, is equality before the law, not a constitutionally protected value?

The Special Criminal Court is lacking in these attributes of impartiality, judicial independence and accessibility.  It is perceived more as the President Biya’s Court than a Court of Justice.

Establishing this court was President Biya’s way of saving himself the embarrassment of being humiliated during his perennial trips abroad as the President of the most corrupt countries in the world.  This ranking of the country as the most corrupt or one of the most corrupt countries had a potential to hamper President Biya’s personal pecuniary interests far from the borders of Cameroon.  There was therefore a personal interest need to establish the court.  Another personal interest need was to avail himself of a legal tool under his direct control to consolidate absolute power, blackmail potential rebels and competitors within the system and to stifle any form of institutional opposition. He perceived the court as a tool with which to whitewash his more than thirty years of corrupt governance and the rape of the economy.

With the war against Boko Haram, the fight against corruption using the Special Criminal Court has afforded Paul Biya justification contest in the next institutionally flawed elections in order to eternalize power purportedly to direct the war against terror and the war against corruption.  True to the name the President’s Court, the President has exclusive preserve in referring cases to the Special Court and the power to terminate them. He decides who will be arrested, who will be investigated and who will serve time and who will not.

Reported by Xinhuanet and Cameroon Concord News

US: Arizona bridge burns, partially collapses after train derailment near Tempe Town Lake

29, July 2020

US: Arizona bridge burns, partially collapses after train derailment near Tempe Town Lake 0

A bridge over a lake in Arizona partially collapsed on Wednesday after a freight train derailed and caught fire.

The incident happened just before 6:30 a.m. local time in Tempe, located east of Phoenix. The Tempe Police Department said on Twitter that officers and the Tempe Fire Department were on the scene of a train derailment and “large fire” over Tempe Town Lake.

“Several roads are restricted near Tempe Town Lake and west of downtown Tempe,” the department said. “Please avoid the area.”

Fire and smoke could be seen along the length of the train bridge, including a portion that collapsed in a park area.

Aerial images from FOX10 showed the fire continuing to burn as first responders arrived at the scene.

It’s not clear what the train was carrying, but lumber could be seen in the water below.

Camille Kimball, who was riding her bike under the bridge before it collapsed, told CBS 5 the noise of the train got extremely loud and as she came off the bridge.

“I turned around to look and got the fright of my life,” she told the television station. “Now there’s fire pouring into the lake from the middle of the bridge. … It’ looks like a scene from hell, truly. A scene from hell. … The flames are intense and the sky is filled with black smoke.”

It’s not yet known if any injuries have been reported due to the derailment and subsequent fire.

Valley Metro, who operates the light rail system in the Phoenix area, said due to the incident involving the freight train, Valley Metro trains were prevented from crossing the Tempe Town Lake Bridge.

Buses were being arranged to transport passengers through the area.

Source: Fox News

Southern Cameroons Crisis: 7 humanitarian workers in court

29, July 2020

Southern Cameroons Crisis: 7 humanitarian workers in court 0

7 humanitarian workers attached to the Baptist Health services in Mamfe were in court today standing trial on trump up charges related to the Ambazonia crisis. The case Suit No MCFI/050c/2020 between The People Vs Ernest Mbah (Lab Technician), Njobi Shey Divine (Lab Technician), Nfor Dieudonné (Nurse/Screener), Ngong Cornelius (Nurse), Tohntuh Henry Tifah (Bills Clerk),Tatah Divine Mbongong (Security Guard), Chiy Silas Taah (Security Guard) was adjourned for the 5th August 2020 because of the absence of the prosecutor counsel. Their Defense team is led by Barr Agbor Robert Tanyi

In a related story, two minors who are girls, Essa Florence Tabi and Tiku Irene Fongu in Suit No MCFI/PI/023c/2018 were variously charged for hostilities against the nation, secession, acts of terrorism and spying on the military.

The two girls were also represented pro bono before the law courts by Barrister Agbor Robert Tanyi, Abunaw Robert and a host of other Counsel in Mamfe, Kumba and Bamenda following directives at President Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe.

Communications Department

Ambazonia Interim Government

UK, Germany warn against travel to Spain as Covid-19 re-emerges

29, July 2020

UK, Germany warn against travel to Spain as Covid-19 re-emerges 0

Britain has advised against all but essential travel to Spain while Germany warned its citizens Tuesday to avoid the country’s worst-affected regions as Spain registers a new rise in coronavirus cases that further threatens to undermine its tourism-heavy economy.

Britain’s effective ban on travel to Spain following an upswing in coronavirus cases in that country’s northeast on Tuesday hammered home the lack of a comprehensive, continent-wide approach to suppressing the virus and giving hard-hit, tourism-reliant economies a chance to rebound.

The U.K. government’s recommendation against all but essential travel to the whole of Spain means that all travelers arriving in Britain from that country will have to undergo a 14-day quarantine.

The move not only dashed British holidaymakers’ hopes for a getaway this summer, but also fanned renewed uncertainty within Europe’s tourism industry over how to plan ahead amid authorities’ responses to new COVID-19 outbreaks.

Indicative of this were decisions by holiday companies TUI UK and Jet2 to suspend flights to Spain, which is traditionally the most popular summer destination for British vacationers.

“The U.K. government must work closely with the travel industry as this level of uncertainty and confusion is damaging for business and disappointing for those looking forward to a well-deserved break,” TUI UK said in a statement.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday defended the decision, saying it was his government’s duty to protect the U.K. from a fresh coronavirus spike.

“Let’s be absolutely clear about what’s happening in Europe, amongst some of our European friends. I’m afraid you are starting to see in some places the signs of a second wave of the pandemic,” Johnson said.

“I’m afraid if we do see signs of a second wave in other countries, it is really our job, our duty, to act swiftly and decisively.”

Johnson added that there could be further changes to travel advice down the line affecting all of Europe.

The U.K. has the highest official coronavirus death toll in Europe with more than 45,000 deaths. One of the reasons cited for that is that many travelers brought the virus back during the February school break after skiing trips in France, Italy and Spain.

Professor Keith Neal, an epidemiologist at the University of Nottingham said it makes sense to advise against travel to Spain amid the summer holiday season.

“Some people have criticized the lack of notice but with cases rising any delay would only increase cases in the U.K,” Neal said.

But Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the new recommendation “a mistake,” saying that the upsurge in new COVID-19 cases is only focused in the regions of Catalonia and Aragon and is much less severe than the number of cases reported in the U.K. itself.

Sanchez spoke as figures were released showing that his country wiped out more than a million jobs in the second quarter of this year.

Spain’s official statistics agency INE said on Tuesday that most of the 1.07 million lost jobs were in the service sector, with the worst-hit areas being Catalonia, Andalusia and Madrid.

Spain insists coronavirus ‘under control’ as travel restrictions hit tourism

Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Ayala tried to strike a conciliatory tone, saying that Madrid is trying to get the British government to concentrate on the scientific data since the outbreaks are contained in specific areas within Spain, while coronavirus infection rates on the country’s vacation islands are much lower than the U.K.

Spain is still in talks with the British government, “trying to find a solution which meets epidemiological criteria,” Ayala told a press conference in Athens during an official visit to Greece Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Madrid’s regional government on Tuesday made the use of face masks mandatory in all public areas and limited the number of people that can gather in one place as part of a drive to curb new coronavirus outbreaks.

Regional government head Isabel Díaz Ayuso said that no more than 10 people can be present at private gatherings, while nightlife venues must close their doors at 1 a.m. – early by Spanish standards.

Díaz Ayuso said an information campaign will focus on young people, who are largely blamed for spreading the coronavirus through their social life. She said young people “have it in their hands to reverse the trend.”

Britain’s travel advice comes on the heels of similar decisions by other European governments, including Norway, which ordered a 10-day quarantine for people returning from the entire Iberian peninsula, and France, which urged its citizens not to visit Catalonia.

German authorities didn’t follow the U.K.’s route on Spain but did advise against travel to Catalonia and two other Spanish regions in light of rising coronavirus infections.

A note posted by the foreign ministry on Tuesday advises against “nonessential tourist travel” to Catalonia, its western neighbor, Aragón, and Navarra in northern Spain. It cites a rise in infection figures and “local closures.”

Meanwhile, Germany’s national disease control center appealed to its own citizens to keep to distancing, hygiene and mask-wearing rules and halt an upturn in new coronavirus infections.

Lothar Wieler, the head of the Robert Koch Institute, said developments over the past two weeks are “really very worrying.”

Wieler pointed to studies indicating that people have become less concerned about COVID-19 and less accepting of virus control rules.

Asked whether Germany is seeing the beginning of a second coronavirus wave, Wieler replied: “We don’t know if this is the beginning of a second wave, but of course it could be. It would begin with rising figures … if we all keep to these rules, I am still optimistic that we can prevent this.”

(AP)

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